The present technology relates to apparatuses, methods and systems in connection with the detection of hygiene compliance, including hand hygiene compliance, particularly in restaurants, food services and other food handling, schools, laboratories and research facilities, hospital and clinical settings.
Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs) account for billions of dollars of direct healthcare cost to hospitals annually. In the United States, the costs range from a conservative $5.7 billion to as high as $31.5 billion. HAIs can lead to longer hospital stays, more repeated hospital stays and increased risk of complications and mortality for patients. Similarly, there are associated costs related to preserving hygiene and preventing transmission of illness with regard to restaurants and food services institutions, laboratories and research facilities.
It has been shown that implementation of simple and effective hand washing and other hygiene techniques can significantly reduce the burden of HAIs and other infections.
Unfortunately, consistent and reliable healthcare worker adoption of hygiene use is a difficult goal to achieve. Due to the fast pace of a typical healthcare worker's workday, hygiene methods are not always implemented consistently or adhered to strictly. Confirmation of hygiene compliance via tracking alone does little to confirm proper use of hygiene techniques. All of the current hand hygiene utilities promise both hardware and software approaches to track hygiene usage and report data without real solutions in reducing non-compliance or addressing proper hand hygiene techniques. In fact, a study in 2010 found that the overall median compliance rate with hand hygiene guidelines in hospital care is only 40%.
Thus, a need exists for improved apparatuses, methods and systems for detection of compliance, including but not limited to hand hygiene compliance, that can be effectively and consistently implemented and that can result in significant improvements in compliance, with measurable and results, including decreased rates of infection and costs, and increased patient well-being.